


now where did that come from?

by escapismandsharpobjects



Category: Grimm (TV)
Genre: Broken Bones, F/M, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Ignoring an Injury, Whump, Whumptober 2020, wound reveal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-31
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-08 21:41:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,941
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27293617
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/escapismandsharpobjects/pseuds/escapismandsharpobjects
Summary: whumptober day 30 - prompt: wound reveal, ignoring an injury. nick gets hurt and decides to ignore it in favor of going to dinner at monroe and rosalee's.
Relationships: Nick Burkhardt & Hank Griffin, Nick Burkhardt & Monroe, Nick Burkhardt & Rosalee Calvert, Nick Burkhardt & Rosalee Calvert & Monroe (Grimm), Rosalee Calvert/Monroe
Comments: 4
Kudos: 47
Collections: Whumptober 2020





	now where did that come from?

**Author's Note:**

> hi!! can you believe tomorrow is halloween and the end of whumptober? wild man. anyway i had such a good time writing this fic and i really hope you like it!

Nick runs at full speed after the escaping suspect. She’s several hundred feet in front of him, flying through the woods with practiced ease. He’s doing his best to keep up, and a few feet behind him, Hank is doing the same. But it’s nearly hopeless - she’s too fast and knows the area far too well, and they just don’t.

Nick sees her jump over something in front of him, and as he gets closer he realizes it’s a fallen tree. He leaps over it, too, but halfway into the jump something tugs on his ankle and pulls him down, slamming his chest directly into the trunk of the tree. 

He lies there for a second, the breath knocked out of him, his chest hurting quite a bit. He groans and pushes himself off of the tree, looking to his ankle and finding the source of his fall - a thick vine wrapped around his shoe, which he  _ definitely  _ hadn’t seen. He pulls it off and throws it to the ground as Hank skids to a halt next to him. 

“She’s gone,” he says, and Nick groans again. 

“I could have caught her,” he says, feeling suddenly quite stupid for having tripped.

“Did you  _ see  _ how fast she was going?” Hank protests. “No way. You okay?” he adds, as Nick pushes himself to his feet, wiping some dirt off his clothes. 

“Yeah, I’m fine,” he says. Just a little sore, really, and more embarrassed than anything. 

“Good,” Hank says, and they begin their walk back to the car. 

On their way back, Nick begins to realize that he’s more than a little sore. His chest feels about what’s expected for slamming into a hard object at such a high speed, and it hurts even more when he breathes in. 

But he has more important things to think about than a little pain, such as explaining to the Captain that the suspect had evaded them for a second time; and the dinner he’s having at Monroe and Rosalee’s tonight, which they’ve been planning for quite some time. 

He distracts himself for some time with these thoughts on the way back to the precinct. Getting out of the car tears his attention back to his chest, as a particularly sharp spike of pain travels up his torso when he stands. He sucks in a breath to try and ride it out, but of course that breath only makes it hurt worse, and he can’t quite hide a wince from Hank, who asks if he’s okay, again.

“Just kind of sore,” Nick admits, not entirely untruthfully. He  _ is  _ kind of sore.  _ And  _ he kind of feels like his chest is being crushed in a vise. What’s the difference?

They head back into the precinct, whereupon Nick’s luck only gets worse. It’s nearly five o’clock, and large swaths of people are leaving the building, including one person carrying quite a large stack of boxes, who stumbles in the hallway and drops a few of them. Nick, nearby, catches one reflexively, and it hits him square in the chest, sending such an intense wave of pain through him that he can neither breathe nor see for several seconds. 

He drops the box in pained surprise, biting back a yelp, and hurries to rejoin Hank, barely able to focus on anything besides the constant pain in his chest, which feels like it’s been multiplied tenfold by the recent box incident. Still.  _ It’s fine, _ Nick tells himself, though he’s getting less and less sure he believes that. 

Unfortunately, the paperwork and discussion with Renard about the case takes far longer than Nick had expected, and it’s already 6:30 by the time he leaves the precinct, feeling pain wash back over him as the distraction of work melts away. He’d like to go home, change, find something to bring over to Monroe and Rosalee’s, but the thought of going home sparks a strong desire to stay there, and he  _ can’t  _ skip dinner with his friends. And besides, even though his chest might be burning and aching with every single breath he takes, it’s really not that bad. He’s still standing, isn’t he?

He arrives at Monroe and Rosalee’s house around seven, and spends several minutes sitting in his car convincing himself to stand up. He  _ really  _ doesn’t want to. The pain has died down to a far more bearable level thanks to his not moving, and the thought of inviting it back stops him from moving at all.

Eventually, though, his willpower outlasts his natural human desire to make the pain stop, and he very slowly, very carefully, gets out of the car, fighting the urge to wrap an arm around his chest, because if he does, his friends will ask him what’s wrong, and he doesn’t feel like going down that path tonight. He’s just going to ignore this as best as he can and have a nice dinner, and afterwards he can go home and lay down and wallow in his pain. 

He knocks softly at the door, which is quickly thrown open by a smiling Rosalee. “Good to see you, Nick,” she says, and before he can stop her, she’s pulling him into a tight hug. 

Against his will, Nick makes a noise of pain, somewhere between a groan and a whimper. Rosalee pulls back, looking at him worriedly. “What’s wrong?” she asks, and Nick shakes his head, brushing her off.

“It’s nothing. I fell.” 

“Okay,” Rosalee says, her tone making it clear she doesn’t quite believe him. “Dinner’s almost ready. Monroe!” she calls. “Nick’s here!” 

Monroe pokes his head out from the kitchen, waving at Nick with a spoon. “Hey, Nick! What’s up?”

Nick gives him a wave, then follows Rosalee into the kitchen to help gather plates and silverware. He doesn’t talk the whole time, and he feels awful about it, but he can’t muster up the energy or strength required. He knows if he starts to talk he’ll have to cut himself off - breathing slowly, shallowly, and evenly hurts enough, never mind  _ speaking. _

A few minutes later, they’re settled down with plates of vegan lasagna, which, Monroe had assured Nick, tasted exactly like the real thing.

Nick has to agree with him - the dinner is fantastic, or it would be, anyway, if he had any interest in eating it. But swallowing causes a particularly uncomfortable sensation in his chest, almost like it’s tearing, and he doesn’t particularly want to end this night in the hospital, which is surely where he’s going to end up if his chest tears open. Not that it will, he knows, on some level, but it hurts so badly he can’t help but wonder.

“You okay, man?” Monroe asks him, and Nick realizes that he and Rosalee have both finished their plates. His own, in comparison, is still full.

“Is it bad? I  _ knew  _ I shouldn't have added that extra zucchini,” Monroe says, smacking himself in the forehead.

“No, no,” Nick says quickly, wishing that he could explain in some way that wasn’t going to spoil their evening. “Just...not hungry,” he finishes lamely, his voice scarcely above a whisper. He feels a grimace of pain start to come over his face, and quickly forces it down.

“Well, do you want  _ something?” _ Monroe suggests, looking around the room like another dinner is going to magically appear.

Nick shakes his head. “No, really, I’m-” he says, and then he cuts himself off with a cough that turns his vision white with pain. He coughs a couple more times into his fist, trying and failing miserably to breathe through the pain. 

When he stops, both Monroe and Rosalee are looking at him, concerned. He blinks at them through teary eyes and then looks down at his hand, which is where both of them are looking. It’s covered in spots of blood, and, he realizes, his mouth tastes of blood too. 

“That’s not good,” Monroe says. 

“What happened, Nick?” Rosalee asks, at the same time. 

Nick shakes his head again, completely unable to speak. He puts a hand to his chest, spreading out his fingers like he can hold himself together by that force alone. 

“What happened?” Rosalee asks again, moving so that she’s sitting directly in front of him. “Nick, please.”

Tears well up in his eyes unbidden, and he bites his bottom lip to stop it from trembling. He’s so close to just  _ breaking, _ everything hurts so much and something is  _ definitely wrong _ but it  _ shouldn’t  _ be, he should be fine, he should be-

“Hey, it’s okay, buddy,” Monroe says, sitting next to Rosalee across from him. “Just tell us what happened and we’ll figure it out.”

Nick forces himself to speak. “Fell,” he manages, knowing that it’s not a very helpful statement. But it’s the best he can do before another nearly blinding spike of pain shoots up his chest, and he shuts his eyes against it.

Someone unbuttons his shirt, then, and pulls off his jacket. “Oh,  _ Nick,” _ Rosalee says, and Nick opens his eyes, looking down at himself. 

His entire chest, it seems like, is bruising a deep purple. It’s swollen slightly, and Rosalee’s cool fingers provide a brief respite from the burning pain that’s been coating his chest for the past several hours. 

“Youch,” Monroe observes. “You  _ fell?” _

Nick gives him a shaky nod, feeling a good deal more vulnerable than he’s used to. “It hurts,” he confesses, finally, in a whisper so quiet he doubts anyone can hear it.

But they can. “I bet,” Rosalee says sympathetically, rubbing his shoulder. 

“I know,” Monroe adds, at nearly the same time, putting a hand on Nick’s knee. 

Nick coughs again, then, reaching out a blind hand and grabbing onto Monroe’s shirt for support, as his other hand comes to his mouth. When he pulls it away, it’s yet again speckled with fresh blood.

“Let’s get you to the hospital, yeah?” Rosalee suggests, phrasing it like a question but leaving no room for Nick to argue. 

He lets himself be maneuvered into a standing position, feeling himself start to fall as a wave of intense pain rushes over him for what has to be the hundredth time. But Monroe and Rosalee are there, and they catch him before he can fall, slipping arms around his shoulders and leading him out to the car. 

The ride to the hospital is spent with his friends gently but sternly telling him off. “Don’t even  _ think  _ about hiding something like that from us again,” Monroe warns Nick, giving him a Look from the driver’s seat. 

“We care about you, Nick,” Rosalee adds, mirroring Monroe’s Look from the passenger seat. “You know you can talk to us, right?”

Nick gives her a small nod from his position in the backseat, where he’s leaning his head against the cool glass of the window and watching it fog up with every small, pained breath he takes. 

A few minutes later, they’re at the emergency entrance to the hospital, and Nick is refusing a wheelchair. “‘M okay,” he insists, knowing full well he’s not, and knowing, also, that his friends know he’s not. But they also know not to push too much, and instead of forcing Nick into a wheelchair, they both silently come up on either side of him, supporting him completely. 

Just before they reach the doors, Nick feels his legs give out from under him as the pain becomes, finally, too much to bear. But he doesn’t fall, even for a second, because his friends are still right there, holding him up, and telling him it’s alright.

“It’s okay, Nick, we’ve got you.”

**Author's Note:**

> thanks a bunch for reading!! now i am going to speak to the masses (or like. the small group). i am submitting my first college applications tomorrow which is very aaaaa i'm so nervous i feel like my essays are so Bad ugh. but then tomorrow is also halloween aka my favorite holiday in the world and i'm very excited!! AND my birthday is on sunday i just have to ask Who is letting me become an adult like. that's crazy. anyway that is enough outta me. i hope that you liked this story!


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